It is a while ago since I kept and showed BEW’s but I constantly get asked about breeding this difficult colour and was asked to write an article that may help others.

Firstly may I say when this colour Dwarf is of good standard they look outstanding – the blue eye against the white I find is much more appealing than the red eye.

When I started with BEW’s the breeders I purchased stock from in Holland told me to be cautious in the breeding pen. We all want to show and therefore to show BEW’s the easiest route is to breed BEW to BEW – this guarantees 100% BEW babies in the nest. The caution breeders told me about was to go this route is ok for a couple of generations, but each generation you breed BEW to BEW you lose type and coat quality and can even lose fertility in the long term. I can remember a lot of BEW’s on my travels in the UK some 20 years ago that had snipey appearance and harsh coats.

Back to basics

For those like me with little knowledge of genetics – a white is basically not a white. White masks a colour gene – this is true of both REW and BEW. You will find your crosses will take the shape of any pattern colour, agouti, shaded, self and tan pattern. Otter Dutch mark is very nice!

I like to start any new breeding programme with 6 rabbits – 2 trios (a trio from 1 breeder and another from a different breeder) containing a buck and 2 does no matter what colour I am trying to breed. This will broaden the family thus not getting too close. With a trio or just 1 buck you will in second generation be breeding father to daughter or son to mother and therefore narrow the line very early in the breeding program.

Example

When breeding BEW’s to any other colour you will get rabbits with broken colours, some will be full Dutch marked some will have very little white – all will be BEW “carriers” ( will refer to these as broken). REW’s were always my preferred cross as I found the youngsters that came out had the higher percentage of white. You will have some very nice Dutch marked dwarfs and they do appear to excel in type – watch for odd eyes (one blue/one brown) if you are thinking of showing them when they pop into the litter.

Round 1

It would be nice to think that all the does will litter and all will have at least a buck and a doe in the litter – we know dwarfs are not that predictable.

Now back to trying to get that elusive BEW youngster! Remember you have just bred at least 8 babies and at the moment none are showable!

Round 2

Some of the crosses may still produce full broken litters – this is where it will try your patience and where many decide this is not the colour for them. But you now have the start of your show team – and it has only taken you 12 months! But the results are worth waiting for. Discard all second generation brokens (F2) – your pet shop will be very happy.

You can use any of the 1^st generation broken bucks (F1) to your BEW does, again only keep the BEW youngsters. Unfortunately you may still get some litters that contain no BEW’s! But keep trying.

You can use any of the 1^st generation broken does (F1) to your BEW bucks, only keep the BEW youngsters. You guessed it - unfortunately you may still get some litters that contain no BEW’s! But keep trying.

And now you can put your BEW to BEW. And yes 90% of youngsters will be BEW. Still the odd broken may pop out.

This will freshen your line for quite a few generations BEW to BEW and you will have the F1 brokens in your shed for 2 or 3 years to keep putting to different bucks or does to keep those lines from getting to close and keep the quality high.

I have also used this method in other colours to - where I wanted to broaden lines rather than breed two individual lines and narrow them early in the program. You will find this works with Marten Sable/Otter, Black/Blue, Black/Chocolate, Otter/Agouti, Chin/Fox etc, etc. I hope this has proved useful.